Weinberg Foundation

What's this? The low-profile Weinberg Foundation in the limelight at the Senator Theater to share the stage with Ginger Rogers? Yes, it happened last week to celebrate the opening of the new Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Senior Center at the Govans Presbyterian Church. Representing the $8 billion foundation, one of the largest in the country, was its director, Bernard Siegel, who exulted in the conversion of "a dream into a magnificent reality."The dream has been a triangular affair involving Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and the city's Commission on Aging and Retirement Education, the long-established Govans church and the late Jewish philanthropist, Harry Weinberg, who had long been concerned with the plight of old people.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is giving $3 million to the Enoch Pratt Free Library as part of a $107 million renovation project at the central branch on Cathedral Street. "This is a truly a generous and meaningful gift from the Weinberg Foundation," library CEO Carla D. Hayden said in a news release. "The Weinberg Foundation's grant is essential to make sure the Pratt is a vibrant 21st century library and will ensure that free programs, resources and services continue for generations to come.

Recent newspaper articles about the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation in Baltimore highlight the irresponsibility of the foundation and its trustees, the lax standards of accountability required of philanthropic institutions by both the Internal Revenue Service and the general public, and the lack of courage by non-profit organizations and foundations in the face of outrageous behavior by one of their colleague institutions.The five trustees of the Weinberg Foundation have apparently molded the institution in the image of its founder -- secretive, arrogant, contentious and cantankerous.

Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake has received a $1 million grant from The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, of Owings Mills, that will go toward building and rehabbing homes in Baltimore. “We are proud to receive support from the Weinberg Foundation to assist the financially disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals and families in our homeownership program,” said Habitat Chesapeake CEO Mike Posko. The grant will go toward rehabilitating 56 vacant properties over two years, Posko said in a statement.

The man whose name seems to grace every other building in Baltimore enjoyed his anonymity. A born businessman with movie star good looks, Harry Weinberg built a billion-dollar empire on a sixth-grade education. Some people knew he owned a lot of property in Baltimore, but they didn't know much else. Now, 17 years after his death, the foundation he formed in 1959 has embarked on what the image-driven business world of today would call a major rebranding. Under its current president, Shale D. Stiller, the Weinberg Foundation strives for something akin to transparency.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation donated $31 million during its 1993 fiscal year, with Baltimore continuing to benefit from its long ties to the real estate billionaire who left his fortune to charitable work.Awards for the fiscal year ending Feb. 28 were announced last week.They included $500,000 for a senior activities center at the Govans Presbyterian Church and $375,000 toward subsidized housing for the elderly in Baltimore.But a local grant for the relatively modest sum of $19,800 gave the trustees the biggest kick, said trustee Bernard Siegel.

AFTER DECADES of dashed hopes, revitalization of Howard Street, Baltimore's largely abandoned Fifth Avenue, finally may be taking off.Not only is the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, the corridor's biggest property owner, actively seeking reuses for its decrepit holdings but it has brought together other major stakeholders from the University of Maryland academic complex and hospital to baseball owner Peter G. Angelos."

A nonprofit group proposing to build 345 apartments, dozens of stores, a multiscreen theater and parking garages on the west side of Baltimore's downtown wants tax breaks from the city to help pay for the project, according to details released yesterday.The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is also asking the city to reopen a pedestrian-only section of Lexington Street to traffic and remove dozens of lighted arches over Howard Street, according to the proposal.City officials have not decided whether to approve the proposal.

In an article Dec. 17 on the Weinberg Foundation trustees discussing the group's charitable giving, The Evening Sun reported that the trustees broke a "yearlong silence" in an interview. Actually, the Baltimore Jewish Times interviewed the trustees earlier and published an article on the foundation's workings Dec. 6. The Evening Sun regrets the error.Trustees of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation used a ground-breaking at St. Agnes Hospital to break a year-long silence yesterday, talking publicly about the mission and methods of the huge but reclusive charitable trust.

Revitalization of six blocks at the heart of Baltimore's west-side renewal effort has stalled because of a standoff between the city and a private foundation that owns more than half the land. The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation says it intends to push ahead with Baltimore-based Cordish Co. to redevelop its 17 properties included in the so-called superblock project. City economic development officials, who say they have made numerous attempts to strike a deal with the foundation, blame it for holding up the project and say that condemnation would be a last resort.

This time last year, Thomas Johnson Elementary/Middle School librarian Sharon Smith used the only technology she had — a laptop and a projector — to bring color and excitement to her students by shining animated books from the Internet onto a barren wall. But on Wednesday, as she looked around the new books, technology, and wraparound murals of the bright, renovated 2,000-square-foot space, complete with quaint reading nooks and comfortable public spaces, she breathed a sigh of relief knowing that she could give her creative wheels a break.

A job at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation comes with a truly unique annual benefit, one that turns employees into grant givers. Its 16 eligible employees will each award a $10,000 grant to the nonprofit of their choice. The staff members will announce their selections and reasons for the choice at the sixth annual Employee Giving Program luncheon Tuesday at the Hotel Monaco on North Charles Street. Ivy West, a program director assistant, calls the gift "a supreme benefit" of her job and an awesome responsibility "to step into somebody's life and help them.

The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation announced that they will donate $8 million over five years to provide scholarships to children attending Jewish day schools in the Baltimore area. The Associated, which has pledged $3 million, is already giving $2.1 million a year from its annual campaign. The Weinberg Foundation will give $5 million. "We recognize the sacrifice Jewish parents make each day to help ensure that their children get the strongest Jewish education they can provide for them.

Colliers International, headquartered in Columbia, named Vincent M. Brocato vice president. Brocato joins the commercial real estate firm with more than 23 years of experience in tenant and landlord representation in Baltimore. Before joining Colliers International, Brocato, of Timonium, worked in commercial real estate in Baltimore and the Baltimore-Washington corridor. He has represented clients including Mercy Health System, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, The Weinberg Foundation, Alter Communications and Baltimore Healthcare Access among others.

If Lainy LeBow-Sachs and Zelig Robinson want to kick off the third member of the new William Donald Schaefer Foundation — longtime friend of the deceased mayor and governor, Gene Raynor — they probably have the power to do it. It is a private foundation, they control two-thirds of the votes on the board, and if they believe the first order of business ought to be to shrink the governing body from three to two, with Mr. Raynor being the unwilling casualty,...

As a community foundation that pursues its goals through grant-making, initiatives and advocacy, the Baltimore Community Foundation applauds Aaron Dorman's call for philanthropies to engage in advocacy ( "Smarter grant-making," Dec. 21), but we recognize as well the even more pressing imperative of loyalty to donor intent. At the Baltimore Community Foundation advocacy is important, but donor intent is sacred. Mr. Dorman holds up the Annie E. Casey Foundation as a paragon while suggesting that the Weinberg Foundation is lagging in its civic duty by not engaging in advocacy.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation announced this week that it will award $10 million over five years for emergency services for impoverished Holocaust survivors living in North America. The Weinberg Holocaust Survivors Emergency Assistance Fund provides medical equipment and medications, dental care, transportation, food and short-term home care for Holocaust survivors. The money from the Baltimore-based foundation will be managed by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, based in New York.

By Brent Jones and Brent Jones,brent.jones@baltsun.com | December 3, 2008

Despite a sagging economy and a decline in charitable giving nationwide, the Maryland-based Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is distributing a record $100 million in grants to nonprofits, a quarter of which will stay within the state. Trustees for the foundation - one of the country's largest private charitable organizations - made the announcement yesterday at a reception for about 600 community leaders and elected officials, including Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin, at the Hilton Baltimore hotel.